THE HITS AND MORE! Yes, Frank Black played “Gouge Away,” but also some songs he’s written in the past 20 years.

Seconds into an overdue piss break, I heard a thing of beauty and relative singularity coming from the next room — Frank Black strumming the first few bars of "Gouge Away." I zipped up with dangerous haste, and dashed back into the at-capacity crowd at Brighton Music Hall, elated to hear either my second-or-third favorite Pixies song tossed out by its author, in-the-flesh. . .

. . . And then he fucked it up, apologized, and moved onto another tune.

"I have to play that song on Thursday, too . . . for the Broadway musical I've been in for the past couple of years," lamented Black, a/k/a Black Francis, a/k/a Charles Thompson, speaking of a looming Pixies tour kickoff in New Jersey.

To put the Pixies' significance into perspective, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is Kurt Cobain being not a good enough guitarist to play "Debaser" off the Pixies' 1990 magnum opus, Doolittle. So a typical performance from Francis's big-money band requires a more elaborate presentation than what we saw Saturday, October 22, in Allston: Francis (who mentioned that he'd been born down the block) alone with a guitar and microphone.

That anecdote about "Gouge Away" isn't merely a bitchy gripe about an otherwise phenomenal hour-and-45-minute one-man recital. It's also exemplary of that loopy "What do artists owe their audiences?" debate. The Pixies went temporarily tits-up in 1992, and haven't recorded anything new since. Meanwhile, in various versatile incarnations, Francis has unrelentingly cranked out new music.

So is it fair for anyone to feel cheated if they buy a ticket to hear him play "Where Is My Mind" and "Wave of Mutilation," and he opts to play songs he wrote within the last 20 years instead? In this case, it doesn't matter, because he totally played "Where is My Mind" and "Wave of Mutilation." It was awesome.

The new Brighton Music Hall is ready to roll The paint is barely dry on the loud red exterior of the Brighton Music Hall, but before the first band take the stage at the free “soft” opening Friday night, let me make one thing clear: the operators are aware the club is in Allston and not neighboring Brighton.

Review: Boston Kabob Company A few doors down from the Brighton Music Hall, there's a new Middle Eastern food stop grilling kabobs with sex appeal.

Nicole Atkins finds peace in her darkness A lot seemed to go wrong for Atkins after Columbia Records released her classic-pop imbued debut Neptune City four years ago. The singer of the newly rechristened Nicole Atkins and the Black Sea watched everyone responsible for getting her signed to a coveted major label deal get fired within months.

Cloud Nothings | Attack on Memory With Attack on Memory , the third full-length from Cleveland-based Cloud Nothings, 20-year-old frontman Dylan Baldi approaches new, drastically darker material with the same empty-bottle angst that made his previous releases so appealing.

Must Flee TV? If Jersey Shore and Last Comic Standing had a threesome with Curb Your Enthusiasm in the men’s room of Great Scott, the bastard issue might look a little something like Quiet Desperation .

Young Adults emerge from Allston apartments Last month, when scraggly local trio Young Adults wandered out on stage at the Middle East downstairs to open for hyped lo-fi darlings Best Coast, college indie brats were already thronging the room.

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JOHNNY MARR | THE MESSENGER | February 25, 2013 Going solo is rarely a good decision. For every exception to the rule of who flourishes after unburdening themselves of the half-talents that have been holding them back — Justin Timberlake, for one — there are dozens of embarrassing Dee Dee Ramone rap albums that exist because Joey and Johnny Ramone weren't around to kibosh a terrible idea.

WHAT'S F'N NEXT? BUKE AND GASE | January 29, 2013 Almost every person I've told about Buke and Gase assumes that they'll hate this band, which isn't their fault.

BLEEDING RAINBOW | YEAH RIGHT | January 23, 2013 The only defect of the sort-of-but-not-really debut from Bleeding Rainbow (no longer called Reading Rainbow, possibly due to litigious ire festering under LeVar Burton's genial television persona) is that the Philly foursome merely hop off the launching point forged by Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, and a handful of others from the oft-exalted grunge era.